The Boulder mass shooting and the Australian example

62% of the shootings at work or school happen in a country where only 5% of the world population lives.

"Somehow, this has become routine. The reporting has become routine. My response here, from this podium, has become routine," 

These words were spoken by President Obama in October 2015, after another mass shooting. More shootings and presidential speeches would follow. Scroll through this list of mass shootings in the United States; it goes on and on. It is hard to imagine the collective grief for all those beautiful lives lost. The rest of the world, and many Americans, wonder why the measures that worked so well everywhere else on the planet are not adopted in the U.S. 

Not that mass shootings never happen elsewhere, but in 2017, it was estimated 31% of all public mass shootings in the world occur in the US, although it has only 5% of the world's population. Time wrote in 2015 that this number goes up to 62% if you only look at shootings at work or school. Even the non-experts feel that the unique ratio of 89 guns per 100 Americans must have something to do with it. And experts confirm this: they found a strong correlation between gun ownership and violence. The runner-up is Yemen with 55%; do you see the correlation? For the rest of the 190 or so countries globally, not one of them even comes near this top-2. 

In 1996, the world was shocked by a horrible massacre in Tasmania. It was American style; there was the AR-15, the loner (a man of course), 35 killed, and the stories of unimaginable grief. But unlike in the U.S., the people, the media, and the politicians all agreed that they should avoid a repetition of such an event at all costs. So they took the only logical step and opted for a proven concept in so many other countries. Within weeks, the government banned all semi-automatic weapons and military-style weapons in all of Australia. Soon after, many Australians voluntarily sold their weapons to the government. The government compensated them financially.

Tonight, I wanted to write about water, springtime, flowers, and about the exciting project of the now one-week-old The Planet newsletter (yes, it was only last Wednesday that the first issue came out). But the tragedy in Boulder feels closer than other tragedies. I have dear friends there. I have spoken in many meetings of the annual Conference on World Affairs, and I returned during my travels in the American West. It is one of my favorite places in the U.S. 

Last year, I didn't spend my evenings typing for The Planet, but I made every evening a digital sketch. I called these -by lack of a better idea - 'alexnotes' and shared them on Twitter. You may recognize them. This is an example from April last year. For me, this is one of the ways that I think of Boulder: Pearl Street, where I never go without making a stop in the (workers-owned) Trident bookstore/cafe. 

Neven Stanisic's Facebook cover photo shows him surrounded by his friends at graduation. His family had fled the war in Bosnia for a new life. Far from the horrors of warfare, they came to the United States. Lovely Boulder at the foot of the Rockies must have felt like paradise.

Neven was probably the first that got shot. He was 23 and should have lived at least another half-century.

Nine others would soon follow. 

Scrolling through Twitter, the victims' faces look at you, and I keep wondering why such an avoidable horror in society keeps repeating itself over and over again.

Australia remains a good example of what is possible if sensible decisions win from senseless killings. I hope wisdom will win in the end. I see an effective new government that fights the pandemic with science and invests in vaccines. That gives hope in a country where until 20 January, everyone had to work it out by themselves and invested in toilet paper and guns.

I think about the families and friends of the victims. Boulder will not be the same, but in a post covid world, I hope to go back to Boulder. See my friends, enjoy the wonderful conversations at the University of Colorado Boulder, and drink my coffee in the Trident.

I took this peaceful picture on the campus grounds in Boulder in 2018.

That's it for today. Stay safe, love your friends and family.